Aristotle's Paternity Claim

velocities at which they were moving away, he of birds and insects)." From his detailed stud- found that the velocities at which the galaxies ies of anatomy, Aristotle grasped that dolphins receded were proportional to their distances. are mammals, not fishes, something that even The Hubble law implies, the authors note, "that the great Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet, at the the universe is expanding: velocities seem to end of the 18th century, did not understand. increase as one looks progressively farther out- Aristotle discovered that some sharks gave ward from any point within the universe." The birth to live young-which was not apparent tall and handsome astronomer with a movie to later scientists until the 1650s. He was the first star's "compelling personality" had shown that to realize that the seed of a plant is equivalent to the cosmos could no longer be regarded as static, the embryo in animals, and that the mammalian and he pointed the way toward the "big bang fetus is fed directly through the umbilicus. theory" of the origins of the universe. Aristotle had no theory of evolution; he thought that species were more or less fixed for all time. But he did understand adaptation. Aristotle's Paternity Claim "Nature," he observed, "makes the organs to suit the work they have to do, not the work to "Seeing Biology Through Aristotle's Eyes" by Robin Dunbar, in New Scientist (Feb. 20,1993), Stamford suit the organ." Street, London SE19LS. As a purely descriptive anatomist, Dunbar writes, Aristotle was first-rate. He correctly de- The intellect and greatness of Aristotle (384- scribed the Eustachian tube that connects the 322 B.c.) spanned many fields; but he seldom middle ear with the throat; the next scientist to is regarded as the father of modern science. do so was the Italian Bartolomeo Eustachio in That honor usually goes to Francis Bacon 1550, and he got the credit. (1561-1626), who denounced Aristotle's meta- Even Aristotle made mistakes, of course. He physics and influence. Yet the credit for estab- contended, for example, that fleas and bugs are lishing genuine empirical science should go to created out of mud. But in case after case, Aristotle, contends Dunbar, a biological an- Aristotle did caution his readers: "The facts have thropologist at University College, London. In not yet been sufficiently ascertained. If at any the philosopher's long-neglected work in biol- time in the future they are ascertained, then cre- ogy, Dunbar says, he departed from the ab- dence must be given to the direct evidence of the stract cogitation favored by the ancient Greeks senses rather than to theories." Spoken like a true and pioneered the careful observation and father of science. deduction of causal explanations that became the foundation of empirical science. 'Aristotle's biology has stood the test of time Ferris At in a way that his physics (which very conspicu- ously lacked an empirical dimension) has not," The Wheel Dunbar observes. Aristotle's major biological worksÃ‘Th Parts of Animals, The Natural History of "The Penis Wheel on The Occasion of Its Centennial" by Henry Petroski, in American Scientist (May-June Animals, and The Reproduction of Animals-"read 1993), Sigma Xi, P.O. Box 13975, Research Triangle almost like modem textbooks." Some of his find- Park, N.C. 27709. ings were not improved upon until recent decades. 'Time after time, Aristotle gets it right," A century ago, when the World's Columbian Dunbar says. "He recognized the distinction Exposition in Chicago celebrated the quadri- between homologous and analogous parts- centennial of Columbus's landing in America, that some features of unrelated animal species the exposition's organizers faced a challenge: are similar because they derive from the same how to outdo the Eiffel Tower, the centerpiece common ancestor (like feathers and scales), of the French Exposition Universelle of 1889. whereas others represent convergent evolu- "American pride was at stake," as one ob- tion from unrelated ancestors (like the wings server commented. 128 WQ AUTUMN 1993 The episode, writes Petroski, a professor of engineering at Duke University, is a vivid re- minder that engineering achievements are often driven by the needs of the day, not simply by the implacable advance of technical knowledge. The man who took up the challenge to American pride was George Washington Gale Ferris, a Pittsburgh engineer. Inspiration, he later said, struck him at a dinner in a Chicago chophouse: "I would build a wheel, a monster." Ferris's wheel was not entirely original. An English traveler wrote of seeing a "pleasure wheel" in 17th-centuryBulgaria, and there were pleasure wheels some 50 feet in diameter in 19th- century America. The 250-foot diameter of the Ferris wheel, however, was new. At the fair- grounds, eight 20-foot-square holes, each 35 feet deep, had to be dug and filled with concrete to support the legs of the wheel. The wheel's com- ponents were shipped from Detroit in 150 rail- road cars. The 45-foot axlethe longest steel shaft ever forged-weighed 45 tons. The wheel had 36 cars, each the size of a trolley car and each capable of seating 40 passengers. The Ferris wheel was a great success. Excited fairgoers were Published in 1893 while the Ferris Wheel was still undaunted even by the extravagant price: 50 under construction for the world's fair, this sketch cents for a 20-minute, two-revolution ride. (A provided an advance look at the technological marvel. carousel ride cost only a nickel.) The original Ferris wheel's moment of glory The "rusting eyesore" was dynamited in was brief. After the exposition, it was moved to 1906. Ferris himself had died of typhoid fever 10 a small Chicago amusement park, but the park years earlier. But today Ferris wheels "remain a did not attract enough visitors to keep the wheel staple of midways," and Ferris's engineering turning. The Ferris wheel was re-erected for the achievement has given birth to a whole new 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, breed of carnival wonders, including the Won- then abandoned. der Wheel, the Zipper, and the Sky Whirl. ARTS & LETTERS Boswell's Botched Life as many other educated people, continue to look upon the work with reverence. Many consider 'The World's Worst Biography" by Donald Greene, in it the finest biography ever written. Greene, a The American Scholar (Summer 1993), 1811 Q Street Johnson scholar, emphatically does not. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009. Boswell (1740-95), he complains, devoted only one-sixth of his Life to Johnson's first 54 Two centuries have passed since the publication years, the period of his greatest intellectual ac- of James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), tivity. Boswell instead preoccupied himself with and scholars of 18th-century literature, as well the final 22 years of the renowned poet, critic, PERIODICALS 129 .

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